Social functions of the family
In essence, the family appeared on Earth long before the emergence of man, the human race. The nascent person simply used the form of cohabitation that has arisen in the animal world for self-preservation, survival. The biological feature of human reproduction( the longer period of the formation of a human child compared to the baby of animals before acquiring skills, abilities, the ability to provide oneself with everything necessary for life) necessitated the organization of life, a form of community where a helpless child with his mothercould obtain reliable protection from a kind of "big family".
Subsequently, as the development of human society gradually emerged, separated, and developed new functions of the family, related to the material and spiritual, social processes occurring in society. At each historical stage, this or that function of the family acquired a different significance - more or less. At the same time, all of them were constantly in interdependence and interdependence, often helping one another, and sometimes, however, interfering with each other. And now it is quite difficult to strictly distinguish and distinguish one family function from another. For example, the fulfillment of material functions is necessary in certain conditions for the family to exercise spiritual functions( teaching, educating children), but the realization of spiritual functions is an indispensable condition for the implementation of material-production functions.
The financial activity of the family at various stages of its development was expressed through such functions as the organization of the direct production process, the accumulation of private property, the organization of consumption, and the exchange of its products with other human communities. At the same time, the economic, material and production, household functions of the family at various stages of the development of society( in the primitive communal, slave-owning and feudal societies) to a large extent also acted as a means of social, professional, moral, and then political and legal education of the younger generation. Productive work at that time did not go beyond the family, occurred in front of children, and from a certain, rather early age - and with their direct participation. Therefore, the very activity of parents themselves increased sharply parental authority in the eyes of children, why each word, gesture of the father and mother were incomparably more pedagogically saturated, effective than in subsequent, especially in the present times.
In the families of peasants and artisans, as well as some other social groups, this phenomenon was preserved even after the elimination of feudal relations. But on the whole, with the transition to capitalism, with the emergence of large factories and plants, productive labor has largely been spun off, separated from the family. Actually, even the managerial activity, the process of management of their factories and plants, the capitalists gradually more and more entrusted specially trained managers, managers, natives not only from other families, but also from other social groups and classes. The predominant value of the XVII-XIX centuries. In the bourgeois family, the function of accumulating material wealth and transferring them by inheritance was obtained.
It should be noted that, at the end of the twenties and the beginning of the thirties of the 20th century,the continuous collectivization in our country, even in the countryside, separated the bulk of the labor activity from the life of the family, facilitating the transformation of it to a large extent only into the consumer cell. Only in recent years, the development of individual labor activity, family contracting, lease relations, which has begun, gradually returns productive labor to the family. It can be hoped that such changes will not only contribute to an increase in the production of food and other basic necessities, but also to the earlier involvement of the younger generation in labor activity. And, accordingly, increasing the effectiveness of labor education for young people. But nevertheless, the general trend in the development of the economic function of the family remains: its share with the development of society is reduced. From the basic production unit in earlier epochs, the family turns into, at best, only an auxiliary one. And the work activity in the family, it is supposed, will mainly develop at the level of hobby, contributing to the development and realization of the individuality of one or another type of personality. In other words, apparently, only labor-art will remain in the family from labor-production in the family.
However, this "art" can in time be no less productive than the current most productive( and most exhausting in conditions of low level of mechanization) family-contract work. The fact that computer training from an early age, the spread of personal computers, the emergence of televisions with stereoscopic, and maybe even a holographic image, with the expansion of TV projection capabilities on the screen of drawings, texts, diagrams, drawings from electronic information banks, technical modeling, design, the invention can largely migrate from the design bureaus and research institutes directly to the family. And then it will be essentially a dialectical "return to the old," the transformation of the family into the main industrial and labor cell of society, but on a new basis, in a new form and with new content.
The second part of the productive activities of the family is already related to the production of the younger generation.
K. Marx emphasized that the production of people and the production of things are two essential aspects of the production process. Thus, the next function of the family, inherent in it also since ancient times, is the reproductive function, that is, the function of procreation, reproduction of the population. First of all, naturally, its biological production. Actually, even a child born out of wedlock birth of a child already creates a family - albeit incomplete( unless, of course, she does not surrender her child to the children's receiver).However, with regard to the biological production of children in recent decades, the family is gradually losing ground, and now it is no longer the only "nursery" of this kind. In principle, this production, it seems, can well do without a family. Many thinkers in ancient times asserted in the most serious way that under conditions of uncertainty( and now, by the way, existing), it is better not to produce children in their own family, but to choose in the children's homes. Because, they say, only in this case you get exactly what you want: a boy or a girl, a blonde or brunette, calm and quiet or cheerful and cheerful.
However, the reproduction of the population has not only a biological but also a social moment, that is, not only the birth, but also the upbringing and education of it. Now it is already quite reliably established that in this respect the family can not be adequately replaced by any public institutions. It is in the warm, supportive atmosphere of the family that the child naturally and most effectively receives the first socialization of his personality, acquires the foundations of his personality.
Of course, nowadays, what kind of family can give their child the training that society and social institutions can give him. That is why, from the age of six or seven, our child goes to school, then to a college or technical school, a higher educational institution, etc. But, as a rule, the moral and psychological potential that the child has laid down for the child remains for many years and playsa significant role in further professional growth and the formation of other social facets of the individual. It is in the family that the child first meets with the public relations of power - thanks to the parental activity in the distribution of benefits, rewards and punishments, prohibitions and permits. In the family, he meets with the relations of authority - both official( parental) and functional( based on the higher competence of parents or older siblings, their more developed skills and abilities, the success of their activities).
But since the reproductive, as well as the material and production, economic activities of the family are closely related to the life of society, they largely come into contact. Already in Ancient Rome, during the time of the Emperor Augustus, the first laws appeared, aimed at stimulating the birth rate in the family. They created, provided certain benefits for all Roman citizens who have children, and at the same time some material and social restrictions for childless and bachelors.
A lot of attention to this aspect of family activity has been paid by the Soviet state since its inception. However, in practical life, however, by many officials the process of the birth and upbringing of children is most often perceived as a strictly personal matter for everyone. Yes, and on the part of the state, in fact, for many decades it was the same attitude. If you look at the statute of state awards, for example, where the importance of each award is strictly ranked and it is indicated which bar after which should be attached, then the social weight of the "Mother Glory" medal or even "Motherhood Orders" is significantly lower than the "For Labor Valor" medals or"Veteran of labour".Call it a wise policy is hardly possible. After all, stealing a child's mother( even on a "lawful" basis) in the first years of his life, putting his hand on his heart, gave very little production, but very much took away from the child, and ultimately also from society. So in essence it was just another self-deception of the command-bureaucratic system of the state, which tried to outsmart itself. Now the situation is gradually improving, because the negative consequences of such a short-sighted, short-sighted policy at the regional, and sometimes even at the state level, are too clearly manifested.
The third function of the family is educational. It is closely connected with the reproductive, when it comes to social reproduction of the population. The family gives the primary socialization to the individual, the child, and teaches him to live among people. But these measures are not limited to her educational function. The family instills in the child the foundations of certain ideological and political views, ideological attitudes, in the family he learns and develops moral standards, here he develops primary skills and patterns of behavior, polishes individual moral and psychological traits, features. Yes, and the foundation of physical health and development is laid in the family. This is primarily due to the educational activities of the family, that is, the targeted impact on the child with a view to inculcating certain pre-defined qualities in accordance with the requirements of society. Parenting is carried out in the process of the child's everyday communication with family members, relatives, all people with whom the family maintains a more or less permanent relationship. Such primary socialization serves as a connecting link between the "small" world of the child, where he receives his first impressions of life, with the "big" world into which he passes as he ripens.
Yes, and during the study of the child in school, then in an average or higher education institution, while working in production, the educational function of the family does not die out, the educational impact on the young generation does not stop. And a man who grew up in a normal family, in his actions, as a rule, is guided not only by the opinion of everything.society or members of their work collective, but to a large extent and the opinion of their loved ones. This often helps him to protect himself from unseemly acts, reckless acts.
The next function of the family is recreational( i.e., restorative).It is known that the formed personality realizes Himself primarily in socially useful activity. Of course, every year a working person gets a trade-union leave, sometimes, if very lucky, gets to holiday homes, sanatoriums, goes to resorts and to other places of recreation, to recover their strength. But the everyday, the main recreational institution is still a family. Here we receive both physical and material, and moral and psychological assistance from each other, we relieve ourselves of the tension that has been "charged" in society, in our personal, official, professional and civic functioning. It is our family that primarily determines our social health. Even the level of effectiveness of the impact of state recreational facilities and places depends to a large extent on the kind of family in which a person lives, that is, from the recreational potential of the family. And the day of life in the family can, for one person, be equal in effectiveness to the weeks spent in the rest home. And sometimes the other way around: for one's psychological load, one day of being in the family sometimes exceeds the weeks of a person's workload.
Communicative function of the family is to satisfy the human need for two opposite phenomena - communication and solitude. From the outside, the imposed, forced communication( on the street, in city transport, at work, etc.) often not so much satisfies our communication needs, but overloads them. In everyday life, an individual very often experiences discomfort from the need to communicate with unsympathetic people. The home situation is different, where, as a rule, we communicate with people, firstly, socially and psychologically close, and secondly, where it is more delicate, respectful of our personality. It satisfies the need for desirable communication, in communication with relatives, close people, ie, the need for intimate communication, in mutual understanding and mutual support. It goes without saying that such a function can only be performed by a healthy family. Moral and psychological health of a person are in direct connection with the nature of intra-family communication, with what moral and psychological climate has developed in a given family.
Some sociologists also distinguish the regulatory function of the family. It includes the system of regulating the relations of each member of the family with each other, with other people, with the whole society. Actually, the regulative function at the first stages of the formation and development of the child's personality is included in the educational function. But also in relation to the adult person the regulatory function of the family is preserved. Already the sense of belonging to the family largely corrects the behavior of adults at work, in communicating with other people. A family man, as a rule, is more circumspect in his actions, maybe even more conservative, in any case, less dynamic in negative manifestations. This makes him feel responsible for the family. And in our time in some republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia, for example, the word of parents, their authority play a decisive role in choosing a spouse, deciding on the question of marriage. The problem of choosing a profession or job is also largely dependent on the family.
Naturally, the form and tactics of this regulatory activity are changing over time. The general trend here is the same as in the whole society: the transition from an authoritarian, command-bureaucratic management style to a liberal, democratic, from the command method to the method of persuasion, advice, advice, etc. A special role is played first by an official, then functional,and then the personal authority of family members: first of all parents, as well as older brothers and sisters. Although the behavior of parents can be largely adjusted by the opinion of children and their actions.
As the society becomes more humanized, the importance of the felitsitologic function of the family increases. To some extent it unites all other functions, but at the same time it is independent, and, in our opinion, should be singled out not only scientifically, sociologically, but individually and psychologically. In the sense that this function should be realized and purposefully implemented in each family."Felicite" in translation from Latin into Russian means "happiness."Consequently, the felitsitologicheskaya function means the creation of conditions for the happiness of each member of the family. But this function can only be carried out by a friendly, prosperous, cultured, moral-psychological family.